Merrick absently felt another breeze on his forearm. In his past, before he had known who and what he was, the passing caress of a draft would have meant nothing. But now it raised his defenses and snapped his mind back to the present.
Cara must have felt it too, as they both instinctively reached for their swords that weren’t there. He cursed himself for being overconfident in his own house and not carrying a weapon with him. He and Cara pressed against each other, back-to-back, slowly moving in a tight circle.
They could feel the danger, but still couldn’t see anything.
They held their breath, listening and waiting for any movement in the air around them. From farther down the hall, they heard a high-pitched whistle grow louder as it careened toward them. Before either of them could move or utter a defensive word, they were knocked off their feet by a pillar of wind.
“Get Konrath!” Merrick yelled as he and Cara scrambled to their feet.
“I’m not leaving you here alone,” she said.
Merrick stepped forward and punched into the air, then followed up with a side kick using the knife edge of his foot.
Both times, he struck nothing but air.
He could feel Cara’s body behind him, and he knew she was doing the same—randomly throwing attacks and hoping to hit something by luck.
“We know the Emperor sent you,” Merrick said through gritted teeth with his fist balled and held out in front of him. “I thought Wind Warriors were honorable fighters who didn’t hide from their opponents like cowards.”
Suddenly, a breeze turned into swirling gray smoke in front of Merrick. A warrior clad in white battle armor emerged from the smoke, and in his hands he held a shimmering katana, its blade pulsing with the white energy of Wind divinium.
Cara pivoted around, and the two of them faced their would-be assassin together.
“Is this your idea of honor, as well?” Merrick said.
“Attacking unarmed opponents?”
The warrior’s face was covered with a white hood that looked like a leather balaclava, but Merrick thought he could make out the impression of a grin from the sparkle in his attacker’s eyes. The warrior raised his sword, preparing to attack.
As his blade lowered, one of the Fianna materialized from the wall and parried the attack. The green energy from the Fianna’s sword sparked as it struck the wind katana.
With the assassin off balance, the Fianna pressed his advantage and struck the warrior on his face with the hilt of his sword. Blood soaked the assassin’s white mask, and he stumbled back several steps, trying to regroup.
The Fianna took the attack to the intruder, hacking at the warrior’s limbs with blows hard enough to sever bone, but the battle armor was too strong and must have been infused with Wind Magic from the Emperor himself. The Wind Warrior shook his head and began parrying the blows, even as the Fianna unleashed a flurry of three mighty swings in a row.
The end of the third blow found the Fianna’s sword tip almost buried in the stone floor as he over-extended his attack. The Wind Warrior took advantage of the exposed Fianna and slid three inches of his katana directly into the guard’s flesh, right between his shoulder and his torso. When he removed his white blade, he did so with a slice across the Fianna’s chest, splitting his chest armor and cutting deeply into his torso.
Despite almost being cleaved in half, the Fianna swung with all his might at the Wind Warrior and this time landed his blade in his opponent’s side. Blood burst through the gash in the white battle suit and splattered on the wall.
Merrick moved to join the battle, but Cara held onto his arm.
“You don’t have a weapon,” she said.
“I’m supposed to be a weapon,” he responded. He opened his mouth and shouted a word from the Earth tongue that shattered the hilt of the katana just as the Wind Warrior was about to strike the Fianna again.
Splinters from the hilt flew everywhere as the wind blade dropped to the floor.
The assassin glanced at his empty hand and then up at the giant Fianna who had raised his sword on high and was bringing it down in a lethal arc. The assassin pulled his mask down with one hand and spit a dozen needle-sharp divinium spikes into the Fianna’s face.
The needles stopped the Fianna in mid-swing. He dropped his sword, grabbed at his face with both hands, and screamed like he wanted to die.
Merrick opened his mouth to speak another word of magic, but before he could say anything, the Wind Warrior pulled a dagger from his armor and drove it up under the Fianna’s ribcage and into his throat.
Blood spurted everywhere, making the floors slick. The Fianna fell to his knees and then to the floor, dead.
Merrick growled as he dove and picked up the Fianna’s sword. The Wind Warrior saw Merrick start his attack and brought his dagger up to block the oncoming blow, but it was no match for Merrick’s full swing.
The earth blade broke clean through the upheld dagger and sliced into the warrior’s body through his trapezius muscle. The blade continued through the Wind Warrior’s body, cutting a clean, diagonal slice through his torso, until it sliced into the Drayoom’s heart.
Merrick staggered back, trying to catch his breath, as what was left of the assassin slumped to the floor and landed on top of the dead Fianna’s body.
Cara took Merrick by his shoulders.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
Merrick shook his head and pointed to the dead body.
“No, but if there was ever a question about the Emperor’s intentions, this should settle it.”
“It was just as you feared,” Cara said. “Even the palace isn’t safe.”
